User:DocFilm BE/Dag och natt

Partly taken from imdb.com (spoilers ahead):

DAY AND NIGHT (dag och natt) is a film about people that want to be loved. It's the story of a father, his young son, his wife, her secret lover, his young mistress, his lonely sister, his forgetful mother, a fanatic football coach, a pregnant whore and an angel disguised as an old man.

Cleverly filmed, more than 80% of the film is made while Thomas, the main character, is driving his car, day and night, around Stockholm and its hinterland. The main characteristic of the film is the splendid characteriological interpretations of the actors and the impact of this rather dramatical denouncement. The message is clear. Where in the supposedly civilised and advanced world we crowd our lives with such benefits as a beautiful car, high spending-power, advanced technology, and so on, we are losing something which is far more important: the ability to communicate with those around us, the capacity to feel mutual sentiments, empathy with those persons who participate in our daily lives. All this has gone, ironically, with the arrival of so many different electronic means of contacting people all over the place. The world has gone mad: we cannot communicate with our loved ones, the people dearest to us. We communicate with a phone, a mobile (cellular), TV, radio, satellites, electronic mail, Facebook and all the advantages of Internet, and other ingenious inventions, but face to face or side by side, those deepest human feelings like saying 'I love you', seem to have become outdated.

This is the case with Thomas; evidently he has lost contact with his mother, his wife, his sister, and even his lover is obviously disconnected from the ravages that Thomas is suffering. The end is horrendously predictable - and orchestrated - with terrifying thunder to aid and abett the outcome, such that there is no surprise. However, it is in the way the film is enacted and carried out that it scores - and scares. Those long hours mostly filmed at the steering-wheel express Thomas' dilemma, however incomprehensible it may be, which forces him into deciding whether to be or not to be.

Director: Simon Staho

Writers: Peter Asmussen (writer) and Simon Staho (writer)

CAST:

Mikael Persbrandt: Thomas

Sam Kessel: Emil

Maria Bonnevie: Sarah

Michael Nyqvist: Jacob

Lena Endre: Anna

Hans Alfredson: Bilisten

Pernilla August: Eva

Fares Fares: Kristian

Marie Göranzon: Modern

Tuva Novotny: Desiré